Americans once mailed their children.
When parcel post began in 1913, a few parents sent toddlers to relatives at the parcel rate. The Post Office soon banned mailing people.
More amazing facts
- 1912 · 1948 From 1912 to 1948 Olympic medals were awarded for poems, music and paintings.
- 1912 · 1960 The meteorologist who said continents move was mocked for half a century.
- 1914 Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions, but the last one, Martha, died on 1 September 1914 — a month after World War I began.
- 1914 · 1928 The cheapest toll in Panama Canal history was 36 cents, paid in 1928 by writer Richard Halliburton, who swam it. The fee was set by his weight: 140 pounds.
- 1914 Gavrilo Princip was not eating a sandwich when the archduke's car arrived; that detail was invented in 2001.
- 1914 On one stretch of the front, the Christmas truce of 1914 was struck for the sake of the post: Belgian soldiers asked the Germans to pass their letters on to families living in occupied Belgium.